Promoting Geometric Reasoning in Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder through a Digital Environment

Abstract

Reasoning and sense-making are essential capabilities in all mathematical learning and understanding processes, in children with typical development. In children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), these capabilities become much more significant, considering their importance for a successful independent living. The use of technology is considered an effective way to work academic content with children with ASD enabling the creation of creative and constructive environments where we can be develop differentiated, meaningful, and qualitative activities. However, the development of technological applications for children and youth with ASD continues to attract little attention, namely the ones regarding the development of geometric thinking. The purpose of this paper is to report the main results obtained with children with ASD using the digital Learning Environment on Mathematics for Autistic Children developed, particularly regarding the promotion of their fundamental mathematical capabilities in geometry. The “PISA 2015 Mathematics Framework” was the theoretical basis for the data collection. Its analysis allowed to place the geometric thought of the participating students between partially-structured and structured and has also pointed to the redesign of some of the activities implemented in the digital environment, in view of the promotion of geometric thinking.

Keywords:
Digital technologies; Mathematical reasoning; Mathematical learning activities; Fundamental mathematical capabilities